How To Make Sourdough Bread Masterclass
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So what we're going to do now is,
is we're going to show you how tomake some sourdough bread.
Sourdough has got quitefashionable and trendy.
It's on a lot of restaurant menus.
Sourdough is trending since about5000 B.C.
It's the oldest form ofleavened bread.
So while we think we've a bigtradition with soda bread,
your granny might have made it -
this is what hergranny's granny used to make.
This is what we're alltrying to get back to.
So the big revolution,the big future in food,
the future in bread, is about goingback. Back to the past.
And this is what we're tryingto get back to.
Beautiful,beautiful sourdoughs,
naturally fermented,with our seeded sourdough
a bit of malthouse.
As I say, you could have ahundred different types.
In orderto make sourdough bread,
is to make your sourdough starter,or your sourdough culture.
The process is very, very simple.
It's simply just a mix offlour and water.
So we've got 50 grams of flour
and to that we're adding50 mls of water.
Stir it together.
And that is simply it.
Now what we're going to dois to leave that to sit out
in your kitchen,just gently covered,
ambient temperature, overnight,for about 12 hours.
So at the moment, we'resurrounded by wild yeast.
It's a good strain of bacteria,it exists everywhere.
You breathe it in everyday.
And then basicallyover a process
of using simply just flourand just water,
it eventually picks up thatbacteria in the air.
And that bacteria starts to ferment.It starts to live off
the protein within the flour,so it starts to rise and collapse.
Realistically it takes about7 or 10 days to make it.
But for a lot of people,I know,
I'm not making a loaf of bread ifit takes 7 or 10 days to make it,
but the idea is, once youget up and going once,
that's virtually about it.
As long as you don't use it all,you'll never run out.
So you only have to do itone time in your life.
So we'll mix it together,flour and water.
About 12 hours later,it looks a little bit like this.
So at this stage,we would be due to mix this
with another 50 grams of flourand another 50 mls of water.
Stir it together and that's it.
Again, we let it sit overnight.
Day 3 we repeat the process.
Then on Day 4,we can already see
it's starting to becomelovely and bubbly.
You can see all these little bubblescoming lovely and active.
And this is the sign of lifestarting to form.
This is exactly whatwe're looking for.
It's starting to ferment.
It's all the good things in life -wine, beer, cheese, bread.
All based on the same principle.
So you will find it starts to takeon a sweet, vinegary kind of smell.
But don't worry, that's exactlywhat we're looking for.
But if you find a little liquidstarting to come away from it,
don't worry about that either,just put it straight back in.
So we're going to give thisanother day.
And we're going to feed it again -one more time.
And by the time it's ready,
most likely on about Day 7.
Don't worryif you find that maybe,
on Day 6 or Day 7,it's not exactly there yet.
Don't be afraid to give itan extra day.
Because it will differ, depending onthe environment it was kept in.
So if it needs an extra day, justgive it an extra day.
But now we've got our lovelyactive sourdough.
It's got that lovely vinegary smell.
You can see it's been kind of risingup the glass.
This started about here earlier onand now it's climbed up to here.
So it'll continue to rise
and then it will drop back down.
So at this stage,it's basically ready to go.
Well, if I'm completely honest,this is Day 2.
This is Day 4.
And this is Year 9.
I've had this for 9 years.
So as long as I don't use it all,I'll never run out.
So all I'll simply do, for exampleafter we make our bread today,
I will have 200 grams left over.
I will simply stir in 200 flour,200 water,
and tomorrow,it's ready to go again.
Because I keep mineat room temperature,
I've to feed mine everyday.
But for the home-baker, who mightonly bake once a week,
or at weekendswhen you've a bit more time,
it can become quite an expensive petto keep if you feed it every day.
So what you can simply dois keep yours in the fridge.
Because it's based on bacteria,cold won't kill it.
It'll just slow it down.
So for example, you're going to bebaking on a Saturday morning.
Take it out of your fridge on aFriday, just leave it sit
in your kitchento take the chill off it.
That evening, say whatever weightyou have.
For example, 200 grams.
Stir in 200 flour, 200 waterleave it sit in your kitchen.
Next morning it's going to belovely and bubbly.
lovely and active,ready to make your bread.
Take what you need tomake your bread,
whatever is left over,back in your fridge, that's it.
So you've a littleonce a week cycle.
You find it gets better with age -the flavour starts to develop.
So even if you're not baking,
you still have to feed it, becausetechnically it is alive.
So if you're building up too much,
just bin some away, just keep backenough to keep it going.
And the easiest ratio to work off,
is whatever weight you have here,
same weight of flour,same weight of water.
Could not be simpler.
Now, in order to make oursourdough bread,
we've got our sourdough starter.As I say, it takes about a week.
Get it going today, you'll be readyby next weekend.
Ready to go,perfect to make your bread.
If not,you could always
get down to your local baker.
Most real bread bakeries willhappily give you some starter.
If you check outrealbreadireland.org
it's got all the real bread bakersacross Ireland.
And most of them like myself, arehappy to give you a little starter,
if you can't get your own going.
So with this one, we're going tomake enough for two loaves.
The great thing about this iswe can bake two loves.
We can pop one in the freezer andhave one to try fresh in the day.
And sourdough comesback great from the freezer.
So we've get 800 gramsof strong flour.
To this...
we're going to add 460 mls,
or 460 grams of water.
We're taking about10 grams of salt.
Salt is an essential ingredient.
Salt acts as a natural flavourenhancer.
We've got our flour,we've got our water,
we've got our saltand then finally,
we just need a little bit of oursourdough starter.
So we're using 320 grams.
Just make sure we don't use it all.
Like you would any other recipe,just add your yeast straight in.
And in this case,our sourdough starter.
Once your ingredients are all in,
just start bringing everythingtogether.
So once the dough roughly comestogether,
just dump it,
straight out on the table.
The gluten formsonce we add a liquid.
At the moment,the gluten is quite weak.
So we want to build up thestrength of our dough,
by what we call kneading.
The idea of kneadingis you simply stretch
and work the dough.
So you will find the dough goesa little bit wet
and a little bit sticky.
Generally everyone's reaction athome is to immediately
reach for some flourand keep adding in there.
But if you keep adding flour, thedough will quite happily soak it up.
And then the more it soaks it up,the heavier the dough becomes
and the tighteryour bread will be.
So when it comes to kneading,you will get a lot of recipes
suggesting the best technique,how best to knead.
To be honest, the one piece ofadvice I give most people
is think about somebodyyou don't like, and just go for it!
So I tend to use the heel of myhand, a little short stretch,
and then use my fingers.
Just pin the dough betweenhere and here and hook it back.
And if you can pick yourself upa little dough scraper,
absolutely great.
It's almost like a little extensionof your hand.
Bring it all back together againand keep working away.
So most recipes will suggest howlong to need for.
Most of them will say8 to 10 minutes.
Most of them are lying,but the thing is,
it's very difficult for a recipe tobe exact.
Because everybody isa little bit different.
Some people are just stronger thanothers, some days you're tired.
The dough will always tell youwhen it's ready.
There's a thing called thewindow-pane effect.
You can see it's getting elastic,it's getting there.
But as I stretch and work it out,it's just ripping, it's tearing.
And that's just the dough telling meit's not ready.
It just needs a little more work.So just keep on going.
And if you do have a mixer at home,feel free to use it.
The dough hook will do exactly thesame thing as your hands are doing.
You're going to feel the doughstarting to change.
You can even see already,how beautiful and silky
how lovely and smooththe dough has become.
Like you saw earlier,when we tested it initially,
it just kept ripping, it kepttearing. So we'll take a little oil
in your hands. It'll stop the doughfrom sticking to you.
And nice and gently stretch thedough, working it out.
You can see the shadows,the membrane behind it.
It's exactly what we're looking for.
So earlier,that just ripped and tore.
But now, that's holding.It's elastic.
It's got the strength we need,that's exactly what we're lookingfor.
So bring your dough back together.
Back into one piece.Into your bowl.
And now I'm going to let it prove.
With sourdough however, becauseit's a more natural process,
everything tends to happen much,much slower.
So where most yeast recipes needto prove for about an hour,
this one, we're going to be lookingat about three hours.
So you need to leave itplenty of time.
So we're going to let this provefor three hours.
So when you come back to it,
you'll be looking atsomething like this.
What we'll be doing now, is we'resimply knocking our dough back.
Because as much as we say thelonger you prove it the better,
you don't want to over-proveyour bread.
Simply take it out of your bowl
and try and make it intoa round ball.
And again, don't over-think it.
By making it into a ball,you'll have simply
knocked it backknocked all the air from it.
So you're kind of back to where youwould have been three hours ago.
So now, what we need to doat this stage,
is we need to shape our dough.
So with the quantity we made,it gives us the perfect portion
to make two lovely sized loaves.
So when we're shaping our breads,we use proving baskets.
Because it's going to be provingfor another three hours,
it would just slowly startto prove out,
and go very, very flat.
So by using the basket, it gives thedough support.
It encourages it to take on thatshape, so instead of proving out,
it proves up. But if you don't havea basket,
you could use absolutely anything.
A tin, a tray,a box, a bowl.
It's simply something that's goingto support and help your dough out.
And probably,I'm sure all of us have...
a Pyrex dish at home.
If you don't have it, your mum has,your gran has.
They're always kickingaround everywhere.
We take a little flourand dust it all over.
Coating itwith a little coating of flour,
will stop the dough from sticking.
So the best thing to do is simplytake a clean tea-towel.
You could use your mixing bowl,or whatever you like.
Pop your tea-towel in.
And again just a good generouscoating of flour.
Just to make sure that the doughwon't stick.
So all that's left to do nowis to shape our dough.
So no matter what we're shaping,
we always kind of startfrom a round base.
Again, try not to use too muchflour.
Just a very gentle coating if youfind your dough is a little soft
or a little bit sticky.Simply flip your dough over.
Take all your little edges and pushthem down to the centre.
Go to the next one.
And then overlap the last.
Round and round yougo and you can see
it naturally startingto curve around.
So I flip the dough over.
Put your hands out andsimply drag them forward.
You'll find the dough lifts up.
Turn it 45 degrees and go again.
Keep repeating,each time
the surface of the doughis getting that little bit tighter.
A little roll around.
And now we have a perfect littleloaf ready to go.
And pop it into our basketupside down.
And it's into our little Pyrex dishwith our tea-towel.
And just so it doesn't stick,
a little dusting of flour.
And now with the tea-towel,you simply
tuck it straight in.
So we just tucked our dough in andwe're going to let it prove again.
It needs to prove for about anotherthree to three and a half hours.
The great thing about this thoughis, at this stage,
you could go and put this straightin the fridge.
And it can sit there all night long,no problem whatsoever.
Because, with our sourdough,it's moving lovely and slowly.
And some yeasted breads wouldtend to overprove in the fridge.
Sourdough really lends itselfto be proven overnight.
So we'll leave it there all night.First thing tomorrow morning,
we'll come back,take our dough out
turn it straight outand into our oven
and we'll bake it away.
Our sourdough has been proving,they've had a second prove now.
We had them shaping. We had onein our lovely proving basket.
And our second onein our lovely Pyrex dish.
So at this stagethey are ready to bake.
Your dough should have anice little bounce to it.
You should be able to touch it andthere's no fear of it collapsing.
So if you kind of touch it and feltthe whole thing was going to drop,
you've overproved it, so the idea isat least you know for next time,
catch it a little sooner.The idea is we catch it on the rise.
Have your baking tray ready.
If you're using a proving basket orlucky to have one at home,
so simply like a sandcastle, justturn your dough straight out.
So you can seeall that beautiful pattern
which the dough picks upfrom the basket.
That's what gives this dough a lotof its traditional markings.
So then we've also got our lovelyPyrex dish.
It's a great wayto improvise at home.
It's been tucked in for the lastcouple of hours.
We're going to gently waken it up.
And all you do, very simply,
just in case it's going to stick,
we'll put a little bit of flouron our dough.
So we take our lid,you pop your lid on.
And you literally just flip itupside down.
So take it off.
Nice and gently, just remove yourflour and tea-towel.
Most professional ovensare fitted with steam.
The idea being for the first 8 to 10minutes of your bake,
the dough is still rising.
So by having steam in the oven,it allows the dough to open up.
And it stops a crust from forming.
Because often what can happenif you don't use steam,
curst forms, the dough hasn'tfinished rising,
and sometimes it can't breakthrough the surface.
It gets a bulge out the side
because it'll look for any weaknessin the dough.
Or sometimes it won't rise at all.So by having steam in the oven
it protects the dough and allows itto continue to open up.
That's also what helps to createyour lovely little crust.
This is why the Pyrex dish isso great, it's so brilliant.
Because no matterhow crappy your oven is,
you don't even have to steam it,because basically
once we pop the lid on, it's goingto basically self steam.
It creates its own little chamber.
And it'll steam the bread and doesa perfect job for us.
Before we do that though, we'regoing to score our bread.
It dates back to central ovens.
Each village would have one,everyone would help maintain it.
So the only way to tell your breadapart is how you mark it.
It's called a baker's signature.
We use a razor blade.
The thing to remember when you'reusing it, it's not a bread knife,
so don't start doing this.Be nice and confident.
So a really sharp knife at homeif you can.
When you're in full control...
And don't be afraidto cut into your dough.
Just make sure youcut all the way through.
So by scoring it,as well as aesthetics
it also helps you to controlhow the dough rises
and gives the doughsomewhere to go.
So when it comes to baking yourdough, don't be afraid
to turn the temperatureof your oven up.
We all have a tendency to cookabsolutely everything at 180.
It's like the universal settingon an oven.
But with bread, we need those goodhigh temperatures.
So really crank it up.So you're looking at a minimum
of 230 degrees.We need that high temperature
to create that lovely, lovely crust.
So a great way we can create steamat home,
is by as we pop our bread in,
and pop in our little Pyrex dish.
Once you pre-heat the oven,
just turn it right up,put in a roasting tray
and pre-heat it and all I'm doing istaking some hot water...
Which is going to release thatlovely blast of steam
into our oven which is going to helpyour bread rise.
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*** We've collected some of the most-asked questions from your comments on Patrick's bread videos and put them to him in this Q&A. We hope it helps your bread-baking adventures! You can watch it over here: https://youtu.be/l0CvE0jK0-4 Here is the second part our two part bread masterclass with Patrick Ryan. Get back to basics with this amazing sourdough recipe. Patrick Ryan owner of Firehouse Bakery demonstrates how to make your starter for your sourdough. After that it is a matter of patience. Patrick wants to introduce everyone on how to make sourdough and show you do not need to be scared of making it. This is a simple guide on understanding how to make a simple sourdough. You can get the full recipe over on www.ilovecooking.ie under the bread section https://www.ilovecooking.ie/features/sourdough-bread-masterclass-with-patrick-ryan/ Also make sure to subscribe to Patrick's YouTube channel here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfAsfCqw0puaznIsQ7N-yBA